For my hometown project I am working on developing a community center specifically for teenagers. The center will include many indoor as well as outdoor spaces. So far on the world tour I have visited and observed many excellent plazas that have been wonderful inspiration for the project. Some of the main plazas that I have drawn inspiration from were Gaudi's Park Gwell (Barcelona), Plaza Campo (Siena), the bazaars of Turkey, and the Plaza de Popolo (Rome). Each of these spaces are wonderfully designed to welcome people into the heart of the space. I have been able to visit all of these places under good weather conditions and observed how, why, where people tend to gather while using the space.
These past few days the World Tour, students have been participating in a charrette and I was able to really sit down and try to interperet what I have learned from these plazas and what would also contribute to my studio project. In the charrette we worked on developing quick designs that weren't directly related to our project but acted as a possibility to connect to it later on. My first quick design was a public space that worked with compression and release as well as the idea of terracing. While forming these designs I was constantly faced with the question of what will draw people to this space? To answer this quesiton I resorted to my original list of plaza precedents.
Most of the plazas that I observed tended to have many basic elements in common within their designs. These plazas are built without a specific purpose, they utilize the elements around them (sun, shade of trees, or water), and provide spaces people who are there to stay and spaces for people passing through. With these ideas in mind the exterior space for my studio project needs to directly respond to the needs of the teenagers of the city for it to be successful. Some ideas I took away from these examples are: to create a variety of spaces ranging from public to private, provide a few areas that have a specific purpose while others at are open for various activities, and creating a variety of multiclimates in the space (shade, sun, etc)
Unfortunately, for plazas to be successful it all depends on the people. But, if designers somehow are able to make that connection between people and space then it is possible to have a place that really makes a difference and impacts people's lives.
Image 1- it is of one the designs developed during the charrette. It involves a public space under a walkway.
Image 2- This is a diagram of the site for my hometown project. It describes basic surroundings as well as current spacial ideas about the site